Slide fastener slider having an automatic lock



Nov. 28, 1961 M. VOITY ETAL SLIDE FASTENER SLIDER HAVI NG AN AUTOMATIC LOCK Filed Sept. 24, 1959 INVENTORS fizwyme' Vo/ry BY FPANK l1 Viv/Va? 644;, a; TTO/f/VEYS 3,010,170 SLIDE FASTENER SLIDER HAVING AN AUTOMATIC LOCK Maurice Voity, Manhasset, and Frank Kuhner, Glendale,

N.Y., assignors to Sewal Slide Fasteners, Inc., Flushing, N.Y., a corporation of New York Filed Sept. 24, 1959, Ser. No. 842,088 3 Claims. (Cl. 24205.14)

This invention relates to a slide fastener slider having 10 an automatic lock.

In a slider of the aforesaid character, it is conventional to obtain the automatic locking action with a resilient biasing means such, for instance, as a block of elastomeric material, a coil spring or a leaf spring. It also is usual to have the locking pin carried by a member which is pivoted to the upper wing of the slider, the pivoting action either being about a pivot or by fiexure of a spring. In all of'these constructions, assembly invariably is diflicult. Thus in some sliders where the pivoting and biasing functions are performed by the same leaf spring member, it is necessary to secure a portion of the spring in an opening in the slider, e.-g., by clamping it in an opening in the slider neck. In other sliders where auxiliary springs are employed, these tiny members have to be carefully set and held in place while the locking pin member is pivotally secured to the slider. Moreover, the pivotal securement of the locking pin member is in itself a delicate operation requiring a metal-forming operation on a part that is in'close physical relationship with the slider. For instance, it requires the insertion and heading of a pin which extends through theslider body and the locking pin member. In some constructions it requires the formation of trunnion elements on the locking pin member andin such cases said member is left incomplete to permit the parts to be placed in proper relationship and thereafter it is finally formed while on the slider body.

It thus will be apparent that previous sliders have re- .quired slow and costly assemblies.

It is an object of our invention to provide an improved slider which avoids all the foregoing difficulties.

More particularly, it is an object of our invention to provide an automatic slider in which the spring is an integral part of a locking pin member, hereinafter referred to as a bail, and wherein the bail is mounted on the-slider by simply forcing the two elements together; that is to say, without having to mechanically create a change in the shape of the bail during the mounting operation.

It is another object of our invention to provide a slider of the character described in which the bail with an integral biasing means can be pivotally secured to the slider by a simple snapping movement.

' It is another object of our invention to provide a slider of the character described having an absolute minimum of parts; that is to say, a slider which, in addition to the necessary slider body, has only a bail (a pull-tab being optional) that includes as integral parts thereof a biasing means, a locking pin, and a pivoting means that needs no pins or on-the-slider forming operations for assembly.

It is another object of our invention to provide a slider of the character described in which the bail has novel trunnion means to furnish the desired extreme simplicity and speed in pivotally mounting the bail on the slider body.

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Other objects of our invention in part will be obvious and in part will be pointed out hereinafter.

Our invention accordingly consists in the features of construction, combinations of elements, and arrangements of parts that will be exemplified in the slider hereinafter described and of which the scope of application will be indicated in the appended claims.

In the accompanying drawings in which we have shown one of the various possible embodiments of our invention,

FIG. 1 is a top view of a slider constructed in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken substantially along the line 22 of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged fragmentary sectional view taken substantially along the line 33 of FIG. 2 and showing the pivot arrangement in a completed slider; and

FIG. 4 is a view similar to FIG. 3 but showing the parts as they appear during mounting of the bail.

Referring now in detail to the drawings, the reference numeral 10 denotes :a slider which for the most part is conventional but which has been modified to incorporate our present invention. Said slider includes a body constituting a pair of parallel wings 12, 14 secured to one another by a neck 16. The wings have an entrance end 18 and an exit end 20. The lateral edges of the wing are provided with registered rails 22 that extend toward one another in the usual manner leaving a narrow space 24 therebetween for passage of a stringer tape. The wings, the rails and the neck define a Y-shaped channel which acts in the usual way to cammingly engage or disengage the heads of slider elements on cooperating stringers.

The upper wing 12 is formed with a through opening 26 located on the center line of the slider for admission of a locking pin. Near the neck 16, we provide the upper wing with a pivot post 28 that is adapted to form a pivotal support for a locking pin bail hereinafter to he described. As shown, the pivot post constitutes a strap of inverted U-shape, the sides thereof being upwardly convergent rather than parallel. The inner surface of the top wall of the post is arcuate and preferably is a segment of a cylinder.

The slider body can be formed in any well-known manner; for instance, it can be molded of plastic or diecast of metal. It also can be formed from sheet metal by coining and bending operations with the two wings and neck constituting a single piece of metal. Moreover, if desired, the two wings can be coined and bent separately with each including one half a neck and the two halves of the neck thereafter joined, as by welding. The particular construction of the slider body has no bearing on the operation of our invention except for the pivot post 28. This post must be one which provides registered depressions on opposite sides of the post, i.e., depressions which face laterally outwardly for the reception of inwardly extending trunnions on the locking pin bail.

Adapted to be pivotally mounted on the pivot post 28 is a locking pin bail 30, the construction of which, and

. in particular the trunnions and trunnion-mountings thereof, is a feature of this invention. The ball is fabricated from thin sheet metal, e.g., sheet steel having a thickness in the order of 0.015 inch. Said steel must be of spring stock, that is to say, capable of substantial fiexure before being deformed. The bail includes a top wall 32, side walls 34, 36, a neck end wall 38, and an exit end wall 4%, defining a hollow rectanguloid body with an open bottom. The ball is shaped while the spring stock is soft and is hardened and tempered after it is formed. The side walls 34, 36 in the finished slider are parallel to one another. Adjacent the exit end wall 40, each of the two side walls is formed to provide a dependent locking pin 42 that is designed to enter between the spaces of slider elements on two interlocking stringers. The two locking pins are, as usual, staggered with respect to thelength of the slider in order to enable the pins to enter the staggered spaces between the slider elements on two stringers.

The bail includes means to bias the locking pins toward the slider elements. Sometimes such a bias has been provided by a block of resilient material such as rubber, or by a coil spring. These, however, required too careful an assembly and therefore are not utilized in our invention. Alternatively, bias has been supplied by having a portion of the bail formed into a tail which was captively secured to the slider body, the configuration of the tail then having been such that the tail forced the locking pins toward the stringers. However, such an arrangement likewise required too careful an assembly, as well as special machinery for securing the tail to the slider body. Still other constructions have had a portion of the bail body formed to act as a leaf spring bearing against a part of the slider body. This arrangement had the virtue of eliminating the spring as an extra part and of not requiring captive interengagement between the spring and slider. However, until now it has necessitated either the use of a separate pivot pin or the formation of trunnions on the bail while the bail was being held in an assembled relationship on a slider. Pursuant to the present invention, we utilize the advantages of the last-named arrangement but eliminate its disadvantages. For this purpose, the neck wall 38, as can clearly be seen, for example, in FIG. 1, has its side edges free of the side walls 34, 36 of the bail. Therefore, and since the bail is made of springy material, the neck wall 38 can act as a spring. To enable it so to do, the bail and its trunnions, soon to be described, are so configured that when the bail is pivotally mounted, the neck wall 38 bears against the outer surface of the pivot post 28, urging the same to turn in such a direction as to bias the locking pins into engagement with the stringers.

The bail 30 includes two trunnions 43, 44, each constituting a lug or car struck integrally from the material of a side wall 34, 36 so that the base 46 thereof is in one piece with such side wall but the edges and tip are free. The tip of each lug preferably is rounded. to approximately match the curvature of the inner surface (indentation) of the upper part of the pivot post 2%. Since the lugs have their tips displaced inwardly, they are adapted to ride within the pivot post, as can be clearly seen in FIG. 3, whereby to furnish the desired rotary bearing action. We prefer so to form each lug that it includes an intermediate section 47 between the base and tip, which intermediate section is inclined inwardly, and furthermore to shape the two tips so that they are parallel to one another and perpendicular to the inner surface of the pivot post. In this fashion, we are able to obtain a maximum width of bearing surface between the ears and the post. Moreover, this type of bearing engagement tends to stabilize the bail, i.e., to prevent it from cocking.

Furthermore, each side wall 34, 36 is shaped to include at its bottom edge a deep centrally located notch 48, the notches in the two side walls being in registry. The edge of each notch remote from the neck wall 38 is sloped to provide a camming surface which, under the proper circumstances, will assist in creating a torque that will lift the locking pins.

The last element of the slider is a pull-tab 50 of conventional construction, including an opening 52 through which the locking pins extend and a cross bar 54, which transversely extends through the two notches 48. It will be apparent that when the pull-tab either is urged away from the upper slider wing, or is pulled in a direction away from the slider neck, it will rotate the bail against the action of the neck wall 38 to lift the locking pins into a clear position that permits the slider to be moved in either direction, this being the usual mode of operation of a locking slider. When the pull-tab is released, the locking pins will immediately be snapped back into effective locking position.

In order to prevent the bail from. being rotated too far, the exit edges of the side walls 34, 36 are formed with notches 56 that are adapted to engage the undersurface of the slider wing. Desirably, in order to enable the pins to be lifted clear of the slider elements before unlocking movement of the bail is checked, the undersurface of the top slider wing is slightly raised.

It will be appreciated that one of the virtues of our novel slider construct-ion is the smooth rotative, i.e., turning, action which is soon red due to the large bearing surfaces between the pivot post and the trunnions. However, the principal advantage we have gained is the ease of assembly. Pursuant to our invention, the bail is fully fashioned to its ultimate form and shape before it is secured to the slider, i.e., the pivot post, and it is mounted thereon simply by a pushing or snapping action which is irreversible. To assemble the bail on the slider, the locking pins are'inserted in the opening 26, and the trunnions are placed so that their lugs rwt on the top of the pivot post. Now the bail is pressed toward the top wing. The force of such pressure and the inclination of the lugs bearing on the pivot post cam the two side walls 34, 36 apart as indicated in FIG. 4. The walls spread apart far enough to permit the tips of the lugs to pass the sides of the pivot post and snap into the laterally outwardly facing depressions as shown in FIG. 3. The bail is sufliciently springy to permit this outward flexing movement and subsequent return of the side walls without causing any permanent deformation thereof. It will be apparent that it is not possible to accidentally spread the trunnions to a degree sufficient to enable them to be withdrawn from the pivot post, so that the mounting which we thus have obtained is a permanent one.

It thus will be seen that we have provided a slider which achieves the several objects of our invention and is well adapted to meet the conditions of practical use.

As various possible embodiments might be made of the above invention, and as various changes might be made in the embodiment above set forth, it is to be understood that all matter described herein or shown in the accompanying drawings is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

Having thus described our invention, we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent:

1. In an automatic lock slider for slide fasteners, which slider includes a slider body having a pair of wings the upper of which has projecting upwardly therefrom a pivot post having laterally outwardly facing registered depressions and said wing further having a through opening therein: that improvement including a bail having locking pins extending through said opening, said bail being of spring sheet metal, said bail having a top wall'and a pair of pendant side Walls which can be flexed relative thereto, said bail further including an end wall bearing against the pivot post and biasing the pins inwardly, each side wall having formed in one piece therewith an inwardly extending lug having a base and a tip which is received and rotativelygjournalled in one of said depressions, the base of each lug being further from the top wall than the tip thereof, the side edges and tip of said lug being free of the side wall of the base piece, the other wall having a similar lug the tip of which is received and rotatively journalled in th other depression. v

2. A slider as set fonth in claim 1 wherein the tips of the lugs are parallel to one another and are connected to the side walls by sloping portions.

3. In an automatic lock slider for slide fasteners, which Slider includes a slider body having a pair of wings, the upper of which has projecting upwardly therefrom a pivot post having laterally outwardly facing registered rounded depressions and said wing further having a through opening therein: that improvement including a bailhaving 5 the curvature thereof, the portion of the lug intermediate the tip and base thereof being inwardly sloping, the base of each lug being further from the top Wall than the tip thereof, said lugs being transversely registered.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,657,445 Weber Nov. 3, 1953 2,715,255 Legat Aug. 16, 1955 FOREIGN PATENTS 88,202 Norway Aug. 25, 1956 

